The Ultimate Guide to Building a WordPress Website in 2023

People don’t need to be tech experts to build a visually appealing, custom website. This guide was written for those without specialized skills and knowledge.

To create a website, you need a domain name and WordPress hosting. The domain name is your site’s URL.

You can build a personal website for as little as $100. Business website prices are higher, ranging from $100 to as much as $30,000 per year.

Start with the basics and add more features as your business grows and your website’s capacity increases. This will help avoid overspending and reduce potential losses.

Why choose WordPress?

WordPress has been the most-used website platform globally for quite some time. According to 2023 data, it powers almost half of all websites. It is open-source, free, and features a myriad of templates and extensions. It is characterized by a very high degree of flexibility and is compatible with almost every third-party service and tool that website owners can use.

Getting started

A self-hosted WordPress site is the best solution for many users. It features a multitude of add-ons and designs to create the website of your dreams. The content management system is free to download and use without any restrictions, no matter what kind of site you want to build.

You will have to pay a small amount for a custom domain name and web hosting. Neither of these is free. You can’t do without hosting for your WordPress website or with fully-managed WordPress high availability hosting because every website stores its data with a web host. This is like the site’s home on the internet.

Your host can install WordPress for you in case you’re pressed for time or don’t feel confident doing it yourself.

Choose a theme

After installing the system, you can start working on your site’s appearance. The theme will determine how your site looks. Each WordPress website features a basic theme by default, but it won’t necessarily appeal to you visually. You can choose from thousands of WordPress themes, some of which are free and some - paid.

In the admin dashboard, look for Appearance to change your theme. Then, find Themes in the drop-down menu and click on the Add New button.

The system’s official themes directory contains 9,600 free themes. If you know the name of the theme you want, you can search for it manually by entering it in the search box. Alternatively, depending on your niche or sector, you can sort the themes by latest, popular, or featured.

Add content

The two default types of content in WordPress are posts and pages. Pages are static content, such as your About Us page, Contact, or Terms and Conditions. This is content that does not change. Posts, on the other hand, are a function of blogging. The most recent ones appear first.

The system displays your blog posts on the front page by default. This can be adjusted to show any static page as your site’s homepage.

Allow users to leave comments

If you want visitors to leave comments on your blog posts, you can use WordPress’s built-in comment system. This is a great way to boost visitor engagement and potentially convert visitors if you sell something.

However, you need a way to moderate comments to avoid spam. You can ask people to register before they can comment or adjust your settings, so comments have to be approved before they appear.

In the Discussions page of Settings, go to a section labeled Before a comment appears. You can choose to approve comments manually here.

You can also create menus for your site at this point. The Menus page is also under Appearance. You choose a name for your menu and then click on Create Menu.

Choose the necessary plugins

To create a contact form, you can install WPForms Lite. SeedProd is an intuitive website builder for creating custom-made layouts and designs.

Security is critical, and a plugin like Sucuri can audit your security protocols and scan for malware. You could opt for Updraft Plus to back up your site data automatically.

To start getting traffic, install All in One SEO to improve your search engine optimization. Finally, WP Super Cache will help make your site as fast as possible.